About

Because of all the overwhelming PlayStation fan support, the team at Martelo Nero have decided to merge the PS Vita stretch goal into our main goal!

Additionally, you can now add €5 to any tier containing a digital game key to upgrade it to a PS Vita game key!

We are so thankful to all of our fans, and will continue to listen to you all for feedback so we can make the best product possible.

Tower of Samsara is a transfiguration.

A game for PC, Mac and Linux which features intense platforming and battling, environment manipulation and puzzles, choices, unique art style and online colaborative components.

The game also presents a mix of lores from various philosophies - such as buddhism, stoicism, greek and roman Mythology - which will resignify objects, actions, reality, life and death.

Your determination will be ceaselessly tested on this journey toward Nirvana.

The Hermetic Champion

The player embodies a shadow spirit, a life form from planet Pluto which finds the deities light wandering nearby. Moved by its own curiosity, it then finds this light, which grants it the blessing and powers that will be needed to venture forth toward the unknown in order to break the Samsara.

The Deities

On the journey, the player shall meet wise deities who will give spiritual help so that he may find the necessary strength to carry on his epic journey.These deities are Jupiter, Saturn and Venus.

Saturn & Venus

The Samsara

Saṃsāra is the repeating cycle of birth, life, death, and reincarnation. During the course of each life, the quality of the actions (karma) performed determine the future of each person. There is no beginning to this cycle but that it can be ended through perceiving reality which is nirvana (liberation).

In the game, Samsara is presented in the form of a Tower.

The Tower of Samsara

The game will be divided into 6 realms. Each realm is a planet, that from bottom to top, represents a lower karmic state ascending to a higher karmic state, in the form of a tower - The tower of Samsara

1 - Pluto - Realm of Matter

Pluto is where the journey begins. Being a formless being,
when you agree to begin your journey by playing the game,
the god Jupiter sees your effort and grants you a chance
to grow higher and walk the path of the Samsara. In Pluto, language is born - from raw matter to counsciouness. In this cold binary planet, matter bind forms into life that has to thrive
constant hunger over the cold wastelands and caverns.

2 - Mars - Realm of Mind

Full of machinery and pollution, Mars is where egotistical minds, war, anxiety and fear dwell.
There, Reason is God and Matter is faith. Trapped
in their own illusions, all these minds can see is separation
and disunion, their excessive reason have killed their
empathy toward their own and have turned the planet to a fearful place.

3 - Earth - Realm of Nature

Life blooms in this place like nowhere else.
Will to live is what guides the animals and plants
that live in Earth.
These life forms learn from adaptation and self protection - the ecosystems work as chaotic enviroments that teach and force changes upon every being.

4 - Mercury - Realm of Mirrors

By entering this realm, you will be forced to
look inside yourself - into the stream of
subcounsciousness. In this place the true path unfolds and any deviation from it is confronted.

5 - Maldek - Realm of Asura

Maldek is where the Asura (demi gods) dwell. With a higher karmic state, they can perceive reality better than animals and other life forms in our solar system.
It is rumored that the Maldekians couldn't handle their higher knowledge and vibration - they lost control over themselves and went sick - their energies got polarized and they became vicious.

6 - Logos - Realm of Forms

Logos is the universal reason, the place beyong time
acessed only by those with highest karmic state.
Its the mind of the Universe, the whole that contains everything.

The Meditative State

The player seeking guidance will find powers to manifest the light of Apollo, a lamp that will be a valuable tool for your journey. It has the form of the Vesica Piscis, which represent the first move of the spirit.

The lamp will aid the player in various ways: Helping defeat enemies, solving puzzles, finding hidden paths, warding off ghosts, locating objects, reading messages and more.

The Akheron

The akheron is the vessel that carries the spirits
to another worlds, harvesting from different realms
of existance and guiding evolution. It is a giant castle-like structure that floats on space and its conducted by Saturn. It is located near the moons of Pluto, in the far corner
of our Universe and its a keyplace to the game which
it allows the champion to use it as a transporter to
the another planets, but also to be a place of resting and peace. Exactly like the ‘ship’ that is meant to be.

The Akheron - Near the Wormhole Generator Device

Enemies and Karma

Enemies are lost souls and forms that will sense and try to steal your inner light. Each planet also has a stronger enemy at the end: a boss.

You can overcome enemies either by battling and killing or by stunning them and sparing. These actions will influence your karmic state and thus influence the outcome of the game.

The Hungry Ghosts - Pluto

The Men - Mars

Bearer of Reason - Pluto (Boss)

The Relics

Traveling through the worlds, you'll be able to retrieve relics from ancient times. The relics are resignified objects of past times who got lost in the planets of the tower. They work as collectibles in the game.

There will be 2 classes of relics:

Required Collectable Relics

You will need these relics to advance as you play the game.

Keys: These relics open certain paths of the game.

Boss: These are relics you get after a boss. You use these relics to power up the akheron and travel to other places.

Optional Collectable Relics

These are optional and great for the game completionist.

Hidden: These are relics that hidden in the scenario, are harder to find and have puzzles or enemy groups protecting them.

UHF Crystal box - Relic

Relics - The Message System

Relics also work as a time-space breaking device to deliver messages to other players in the online message system. Players will be able to write a three-line poem (called haiku) to other players with advices, inspiration or even lies.

Message System Reading Example

We are Thrilled to announce that Chris Christodoulou, the composer of the amazing Risk of Rain OST joined our team and will compose the entire OST of the game!

Listen to the first track of the OST:

Kickstarter Trailer Track

This section describes the rewards goodies in detail. For prices and goodies-per-tiers please refer to the Kickstarter default's Reward section on the column to the right.

** In the event of Nintendo failing to provide support for indie developers on the new console (which is unlikely), backers will vote to choose another Nintendo platform to publish the game.

Budget Breakdown

We are Martelo Nero™

Gabriele Marchi - 27 years old - Italian

Game Logic Programming, Physics Programming, Marketing, Social Media

Gabriele has 8 years of game programming experience and 3 years of work in the game industry as a programmer, producing games for Trento MUSE museum. He's also the most good looking guy in the team.

Danilo Ganzella - 27 years old - Brazilian

Game Design, Team Management, Tools Programming, Particles, Marketing

Danilo started on the Video Game industry when he was 19, working on enterprises such as Kidguru which launched Freekscape - the first Brazillian game on the PSN. Danilo also has a Degree in Computer Science and another in Media and Communication Studies.

Guilherme has been making art his whole life, working professionally with visuals since his early 20's. Guilherme also has a degree in Visual Arts. Portfolio: www.behance.net/ggaspar

Chris Christodoulou - Omnitemporal - Greek

Music Composing

Chris has studied music composition and has a masters in film music. He's written stand-alone pieces and scores for short films, but found his true calling in video game music. His first game score was for The Sea Will Claim Everything in 2012. Since then he has produced several OSTs encompassing a variety of genres including the soundtrack for Risk of Rain and Deadbolt.

Risks and challenges

Tower of Samsara depends heavily on assets.

And most of them are visuals. Only on the very first map of the game, we have about 30 particle systems and about 300 sprites.

-- In the last 10 months we made a good amount of progress developing the game aesthethics and core components, which are already almost done and user-tested.

That means that we can focus on making content instead of be fiddling too much with core gameplay adjustments. This happened because our game benefits greatly from others awesome platform games like Super Metroid or Fez, where we can scavenge lots of successfull platform-related mechanics.

Furthermore. the game will be divided in planets, which will help we keep the development modulated and get feedback from backers, correcting bugs, making designs adjustments, balancing difficulty, etc.

So our biggest challenge will be keeping up with the schedule while not giving up the visual details or compromising the game length. Although its the first project of this team, we are a group of three guys with a lot of experience in game development, and we'll do everything we can to stick to our deadlines and deliver the immersiveness and deepness we've promised in this presentation.

Pledge €500 or more
About $573

+Put a custom message and your name in the game that will lay engraved on a guardian monument in akheron for all eternity!
(see Rewards section for details)
+Name Separated and Bigger In Backer Credits as a MVP
+Free shipping of all goodies